Trading bots with fee cashback and rebates

Cashback is where the fee competition actually happens. The headline rate has been stuck at 1% almost everywhere for two years, so platforms compete on what they give back: a share of the fee returned per trade, set by volume tier or by the link you signed up through.

The two mechanisms behave differently. A tier ladder rewards volume you have to produce first, and the thresholds are frequently unpublished: Axiom runs seven levels, BONKbot has its Platinum grades, Trojan pays rebates. A referral-locked rate, like Terminal's 35% against a default 10%, is decided at signup and cannot be changed afterwards, so it is the one fee decision you make before your first trade.

Cashback is a claim on the platform, not a discount: you pay the gross fee and get part of it back later, from an operator that has to still be there to pay it. One listing on this page advertises rakeback without publishing either the fee it comes off or the share it returns, so there is no arithmetic to check.